Epiphanius Wilson
Egyptian Literature
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Table of contents
Introduction.
The Book Of The Dead
Egyptian Tales
The Tell Amarna Tablets Translated by C. R. Conder
The Great Tablet Of Rameses II At Abu-Simbel Translated by Edouard Naville
Hymn To Osiris (Stele of Amen-em-ha, Eighteenth Dynasty)
Travels Of An Egyptian In The Fourteenth Century B.C.
Dirge Of Menephtah Translated by S. Birch
Hymn To The Nile Translated by Rev. F. C. Cook
The Solemn Festal Dirge Of The Egyptians Translated by C. W. Goodwin
Hymns To Amen Translated by C. W. Goodwin
The Song Of The Harper Translated by Ludwig Stern
Hymn To Amen-Ra Translated by C. W. Goodwin
The Lamentations Of Isis And Nephthys Translated by P. J. De Horrack
The Litany Of Ra Translated by Edouard Naville
The Book Of Respirations Translated by P. J. De Horrack
The Epic Of Penta-Our Translated by C. W. Goodwin
Footnotes
Introduction.
The
wonders of Egyptian archæology are the latest and most precious
harvest of scholars and explorers. From Belzoni to Flinders Petrie
there has been a succession of discoveries in the valley of the Nile
with which it is hard for ordinary students to keep pace. Our
knowledge of Egyptian life today is far clearer and more complete
than Bentley's or Porson's acquaintance with the antiquities of
Greece and Rome, and we have far more complete access to the
treasures of Egyptian literature than Dante or Thomas Aquinas had to
the remains of Attic poets and mystics. We know exactly how an
Egyptian of the twelfth dynasty dressed; what was the position of
women in Egypt; and what uniform was worn by the Egyptian soldiers
who took part in the campaign against Khitasis. We can see Rameses II
riding in his war-chariot; we know the very names of the horses by
whose side his tame lion is running and thirsting for the blood of
his master's foes. We know all about the domestic animals, the
funeral customs, the trades, the gods, the agriculture of the Nile
valley thirty centuries ago. We see the whole many-sided civilization
portrayed in the brightest colors in the poetry, the books of ritual,
the hieratic inscriptions, the tablets, papyri, and hieroglyphics
which day by day come to light in exhaustless abundance from the
mounds and ruins of that fertile plain that stretches from Thebes to
the Mareotic lake.For
instance, we can learn exact particulars about the mode in which
Rameses II made war, from the poem of Penta-Our, a Theban writer of
the fourteenth century b.c. It is only by a figure of speech that
this poem can be called an epic; it is rather a historical narrative
couched in terms of poetic exaggeration with the object of flattering
the royal vanity of Pharaoh.The
campaign in which Rameses then engaged was directed against
Kadesh, a city built on an island in the Orontes. It is, according to
Penta-Our, inhabited by a people known as Khita, whose spies are
brought into the tent of Rameses and questioned as to the whereabouts
of the King of Kadesh. The spies are forced by blows to answer, and
they tell the Egyptian monarch that the King of the Khita “is
powerful with many soldiers, and with chariot soldiers, and with
their harness, as many as the sand of the seashore, and they are
ready to fight behind Kadesh.”The
King is very angry; for he had been deceived by false news to the
effect that his enemy had fled in terror to Khilibu. “The fault is
great,” he cries, “that the governors of the land and the vassal
princes of Pharaoh have committed, in neglecting to watch the
movements of the Khita.” He sends to bring back the legions he had
sent away, and meanwhile the approach of the enemy is announced. The
camp of Rameses is surprised by the Asiatics; many foot-soldiers are
killed before they can seize their weapons, but a faithful band
rallies in front of the royal quarters. Suddenly a cry is heard;
Rameses has quickly put on his armor, seized his lance, ordered his
war lion to be loosed, and dashed into the fight. Pharaoh with his
master of the horse, Menni, is soon hemmed in by foes. “My Lord, O
generous King!” cries Menni, “Egypt's great protector in the day
of battle! behold we stand alone in the midst of the enemy, for the
archers and the chariots have left us. Let us return, that our lives
may be saved. Save us, O my Lord, Rameses Miamun!” Then Rameses
called upon Amen, his god, and under his protection charged the
enemy, and “his hand devoured them in the space of an instant.”
Five times he rushed upon them, and five times they repulsed him. The
sixth time he breaks their ranks and regains his own lines. Then the
legions of Ptah, which had returned to the camp, join the battle, and
the Asiatics are routed. The first care of Rameses is to refresh his
brave horses, Victory-in-Thebes and Maut-is-Satisfied. Neither they
nor Rameses and his lion are wounded, though all stained with blood
and dust, while the head-plumes of the team are torn and tattered and
their caparison broken.This
is a brief account of the main incident in this Egyptian epic, which
is written with life-like detail and animation. The war
concludes with a treaty, and the marriage of Rameses with the
daughter of the King of Kadesh, so that henceforth “the people of
Egypt were of one mind with the princes of Khita, which had not been
the case since the god Rā.”The
Egyptians have always been deeply impressed by the fact of human
mortality, and much of their religious belief and religious ritual is
taken up with the rites of burial, and detailed doctrines as to the
experience of the soul after parting from the body. Their elaborate
embalming of the dead springs from the desire to keep the mortal
tenement prepared for the soul's return to it. In their Book of the
Dead is a full series of prayers, songs, and incantations to be
employed at funerals, and by the individual in his journey beyond the
tomb. The funeral procession was a very noisy company; lamentations
were heard through its whole length, but the burden of the hymns was
always, “To the West.” This was enlarged upon, “To the West,
the dwelling of Osiris; O Chief, as thou goest to the West, the Gods
themselves lament, as thou goest to the West.”Osiris
is the judge who weighs the souls, and allots them happiness or
misery, according to their deserts. “The Book of the Dead” is
interesting because it teaches how clearly and dogmatically the
solemn and precise Egyptian stated his views and held his convictions
concerning the unknown country. Four parts of man, it was said,
survive after death, namely, the soul, the spirit, the shadow, and
the double. The double remains in the tomb, and only leaves it in
search of food. Sometimes it feels its loneliness and avenges itself
upon near relations who have forsaken it. But the soul hurries to the
bar of Osiris, where Thoth weighs the heart in the scales, and the
innocent are admitted into the Field of Beans, a realm of fertility,
where wheat grows seven cubits high. Immortality is spent in
feasting, singing, conversation, and games. But the whole of this
wonderful book is well worth studying. It shows how what Addison
calls “this longing after immortality” led an ancient and deeply
religious people to attempt in their burial rites to rob even the
grave of its terrors, and conjured up out of the shadows of the tomb
a clear and distinct vision of future life, wherein man in his
complete individuality survived to all eternity.Among
the most important results of recent Egyptian exploration must be
reckoned the discovery of the tablets of Tell Amarna. Tell Amarna is
a village in Upper Egypt, and in a pit at the foot of the mountain,
at the base of which it stands, were discovered hundreds of these
relics, which have since been distributed among the museums of
London, Berlin, and Gizeh. The writing on these tablets is cuneiform,
and the matter is of profound historic importance, illustrating, as
it does, the relations between Egypt and western Asia in the
fifteenth century b.c. While the existence of these tablets proves
that cuneiform writing was common to Palestine and Syria as well as
the Euphrates Valley, yet curiously enough the manuscripts of Tell
Amarna are different from any of the same kind that have been found
elsewhere, and the language resembles somewhat the Hebrew of the Old
Testament.While
most of these tablets are letters and despatches from friendly powers
in Syria, and from vassal princes in Palestine, others contain
interesting legends. The letters are addressed to the Pharaohs known
as Amenophis III and Amenophis IV, who reigned in the sixteenth and
fifteenth centuries b.c.The
Egyptians employed what practically were three alphabets—the
hieroglyphic, the hieratic, and the demotic. The hieroglyph is a
symbol, denoting something without letters or syllables; as, pictures
of a bee stand for king. The hieratic handwriting was a transition
from symbols to primitive letters; the papyrus reed, cut in slices
and gummed together, was used as paper for this writing, much of
which is very beautifully executed in black and red inks. These
papyri are constantly being discovered, but perhaps the earliest
“find” of importance was that at Thebes in 1846, when a number of
literary compositions were brought to light which must have been
executed during the twelfth dynasty, about twenty-five centuries b.c.The
Egyptian Tales are works written in a lighter vein than the
literature we have already described. They will be read with delight,
and none the less so because they show that the Egyptians, who are
the Chinese of the Mediterranean, possess that saving quality in
literary and political life, namely, a sense of humor.
The Book Of The Dead
Translated
by E. A. Wallis BudgeA
Hymn To The Setting SunA
Hymn of Praise to Ra when he riseth upon the horizon, and when he
setteth in the land of life. Osiris, the scribe Ani, saith:
“Homage
to thee, O Rā, when thou risest [as] Tem-Heru-khuti (Tem-Harmachis).
Thou art adored [by me when] thy beauties are before mine eyes, and
[when thy] radiance [falleth] upon [my] body. Thou goest forth to thy
setting in the
Sektet boat with
[fair] winds, and thy heart is glad; the heart of the
Mātet boat
rejoiceth. Thou stridest over the heavens in peace, and all thy foes
are cast down; the never-resting stars sing hymns of praise unto
thee, and the stars which rest, and the stars which never fail
glorify thee as thou sinkest to rest in the horizon of Manu,1
O thou who art beautiful at morn and at eve, O thou lord who livest
and art established, O my lord!
“Homage
to thee, O thou who art Rā when thou risest, and Tem when thou
settest [in] beauty. Thou risest and shinest on the back of thy
mother [Nut], O thou who art crowned king of the gods! Nut doeth
homage unto thee, and everlasting and never-changing order2
embraceth thee at morn and at eve. Thou stridest over the heaven,
being glad of heart, and the Lake of Testes is content [thereat]. The
Sebau Fiend hath fallen to the ground; his arms and his hands have
been hacked off, and the knife hath severed the joints of his body.
Rā hath a fair wind; the
Sektet boat goeth
forth and sailing along it cometh into port. The gods of the south
and of the north, of the west and of the east, praise thee, O thou
divine substance, from whom all forms of life come into being. Thou
sendest forth the word, and the earth [pg 004] is flooded with
silence, O thou only One, who didst dwell in heaven before ever the
earth and the mountains came into existence. O Runner, O Lord, O only
One, thou maker of things which are, thou hast fashioned the tongue
of the company of the gods, thou hast produced whatsoever cometh
forth from the waters, and thou springest up from them over the
flooded land of the Lake of Horus. Let me snuff the air which cometh
forth from thy nostrils, and the north wind which cometh forth from
thy mother [Nut]. Oh, make thou to be glorious my shining form (khu),
O Osiris, make thou to be divine my soul (ba)!
Thou art worshipped [in] peace (or [in] setting), O lord of the gods,
thou art exalted by reason of thy wondrous works. Shine thou with thy
rays of light upon my body day by day, [upon me], Osiris the scribe,
the teller of the divine offerings of all the gods, the overseer of
the granary of the lords of Abtu (Abydos), the royal scribe in truth
who loveth thee; Ani, victorious in peace.”Hymn
And Litany To Osiris[From
the Papyrus of Ani (British Museum No. 10,470, sheet 19).]
“Praise
be unto thee, O Osiris, lord of eternity, Unnefer, Heru-khuti
(Harmachis), whose forms are manifold, and whose attributes are
majestic, Ptah-Seker-Tem in Annu (Heliopolis), the lord of the hidden
place, and the creator of Het-ka-Ptah (Memphis) and of the gods
[therein], the guide of the underworld, whom [the gods] glorify when
thou settest in Nut. Isis embraceth thee in peace, and she driveth
away the fiends from the mouth of thy paths. Thou turnest thy face
upon Amentet, and thou makest the earth to shine as with refined
copper. Those who have lain down (i.e.,
the dead) rise up to see thee, they breathe the air and they look
upon thy face when the Disk riseth on its horizon; their hearts are
at peace inasmuch as they behold thee, O thou who art Eternity and
Everlastingness!”Litany
“Homage
to thee, [O lord of] starry deities in Annu, and of heavenly beings
in Kher-āba; thou god Unti, who art more glorious than the gods who
are hidden in Annu; oh grant3
thou unto me a path whereon I may pass in peace, for I am just and
true; I have not spoken lies wittingly, nor have I done aught with
deceit.”
“Homage
to thee, O An in Antes, (?) Heru-khuti (Harmachis), with long strides
thou stridest over heaven, O Heru-khuti. Oh, grant thou unto me a
path whereon I may pass in peace, for I am just and true; I have not
spoken lies wittingly, nor have I done aught with deceit.”
“Homage
to thee, O Soul of everlastingness, thou Soul who dwellest in Tattu,
Unnefer, son of Nut; thou art lord of Akert. Oh, grant thou unto me a
path wherein I may pass in peace, for I am just and true; I have not
spoken lies wittingly, nor have I done aught with deceit.”
“Homage
to thee in thy dominion over Tattu; the
Ureret crown is
established upon thy head; thou art the One who maketh the strength
which protecteth himself, and thou dwellest in peace in Tattu. Oh,
grant thou unto me a path whereon I may pass in peace, for I am just
and true; I have not spoken lies wittingly, nor have I done aught
with deceit.”
“Homage
to thee, O lord of the Acacia tree, the
Seker boat is set
upon its sledge; thou turnest back the Fiend, the worker of evil, and
thou causest the
Utchat to rest upon
its seat. Oh, grant thou unto me a path whereon I may pass in peace,
for I am just and true; I have not spoken lies wittingly, nor have I
done aught with deceit.”
“Homage
to thee, O thou who art mighty in thine hour, thou great and mighty
Prince, dweller in An-rut-f,4
lord of eternity and creator of everlastingness, thou art the lord of
Suten-henen (Heracleopolis Magna). Oh, grant thou unto [pg 006] me a
path whereon I may pass in peace, for I am just and true; I have not
spoken lies wittingly, nor have I done aught with deceit.”
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Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!